Category: Folk (Page 4 of 23)

Junip: Fields

September 9, 2010 /


RIYL: The Radio Dept, Elbow, Kings of Convenience

José González is best known for his Nick Drake-inspired brand of hushed folk. His haunting and ethereal vocal presence has garnered the Swedish singer-songwriter a sizable following throughout the indie world. Despite a steady flow of EPs and two studio albums for Mute Records, González has still found time to work with Junip – the trio he helped form in the late ‘90s. Where his solo material is often sparse in everything from instrumentation to its production, Junip offers González a broader sonic palette to work from.

Junip’s first two releases, Black Refugee EP (2005) and this year’s Rope and Summit EP, showcased the Swedes backing González’s sweetened melodies and delicate vocal delivery with a fuller, much richer arrangement style. Fields delivers on the promise of Junip’s prior studio offerings, with one hypnotizing track after the other. The band weaves the kinds of subtle melodic nuances that seep into your head without you even knowing it. There are several of these little hooks in every song, and new ones often reveal themselves with each repeated listen.

Produced by the band and Don Alsterberg, Fields has some of the better keyboard tones (courtesy of Tobias Winterkorn) in recent memory. The warmth and chameleon-like way of fitting its surroundings make the keyboards one of the highlights on an album with many. Songs like “Always” and “Faded to the Grain” find a group that proves that genuine song craft is not a dead art form. Fields might be too sophisticated for modern rock radio, but in a perfect world, Junip would be playing stadiums along with Coldplay. (Mute 2010)

Junip MySpace page

Adult Contemporary, Artists, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop

Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs: God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise

August 18, 2010 /


RIYL: James Morrison, Ryan Adams, Iron & Wine

51ENPcsTtLL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]When Ray LaMontagne burst onto the scene with Trouble in 2004, it was easy to assume that the album’s slight glossy sheen was the work of producer Ethan Johns, and look forward to a time when LaMontagne had enough clout to put together a collection with the sort of grit that would support and highlight the soulful folk of his unapologetically retro songwriting. Three albums later, LaMontagne has stepped out on his own — but the result, the teasingly down-home titled God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise, is the most mannered and frictionless of his young career.

It didn’t have to be this way. LaMontagne convened a band, christened the Pariah Dogs, for the sessions, helmed by LaMontagne from the comfort of his own studio, and recorded everything live; frustratingly, it’s the songs themselves that lack the essential heat of his primary influences. Where LaMontagne evoked the bucolic soul of Van Morrison’s early ’70s recordings on his debut, he’s steadily retreated to a Laurel Canyon somnolence over time, and God Willin’ finds him mostly willing to simply lay back, unspool his tuneful rasp, and let the pedal steels do all the work.

The lone exception is the opening track, “Repo Man,” which hints at the sort of back porch funk LaMontagne has always seemed to have in him. But from the second track, the lovely “New York City’s Killin’ Me,” through the harmonica-laced closing track, “Devil’s in the Jukebox,” the rest of God Willin’ is curiously flat; it ambles sheepishly, hands in pockets, from plaintive ballad to lukewarm mid-tempo number and back again.

The end result is an album that certainly isn’t bad, but it’s undeniably frustrating. At his best, LaMontagne has always suggested the modern fruition of the seeds sown by rock’s earliest soul explorers; here, he sounds like nothing so much as a pleasant afternoon nap. And like a nap, listening to God Willin’ has its pleasures, but you’re liable to come out of it feeling groggy and a little ashamed that you weren’t doing something more productive with your time. Hopefully, LaMontagne will catch a twinge of that guilt too. (RCA 2010)

Ray LaMontagne MySpace page

Americana, CD Reviews, Folk, Soul

Lissie: Catching a Tiger

August 18, 2010 /

RIYL: Patty Griffin, Brandi Carlile, Kings of Leon

51kNc0uvmaL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]The sign of a great song is that you can’t just listen to it once. The melody gets stuck inside your head and you keep going back for repeated  listens — five, 10, sometimes 20 times in a row. The sign of a great album is that it’s full of great songs you can’t stop listening to it no matter how much you tell yourself you should pause and catch your breath. Of course, great albums with great songs take a long time to get through, because you’re continually repeating the first song until you’re finally ready to move on to track two. The process begins all over again until a whole week has passed before you’ve finally gotten through an album that should have only taken an hour. Such is the case with Catching a Tiger, the full-length debut from freckle-faced Midwesterner Lissie, aka Elisabeth Maurus. Words can’t express how wonderful and exciting this album is.

Lissie has a voice that is soulful, aching, and raw; it can do just about anything she commands it to. The opening track is a huge, Tarantino-sized soul song with Italian western overtones called “Record Collector”; here, Lissie brings Duffy to mind, as well as on the splendid ’60s girl group pop-style song “Stranger.” However, as you listen to the album, it becomes obvious very quickly that Lissie is capable of any genre, be it adult alternative (as on the intricately worded, immediately catchy “When I’m Alone”) or blues rock (the heartbreaking “In Sleep,” which features a killer two-minute guitar solo that warps the song up to its bitter end). “Bully” is a slice of ’60s-ish big old pop bombast; “Little Lovin’” a folksy ballad with a strong backbeat that crescendos to a triumphant finish; and “Cuckoo” is just about one of the most perfect reflections of adolescence I’ve heard in ages. When I listen to that particular track I can’t help but think of my young daughter and the formative years ahead of her. I only hope that she can find a song that resonates with her as I’m sure “Cuckoo” will connect with a crop of young girls just becoming young women. By the time the album wraps up with quiet hymn “Oh Mississippi” (co-written with Ed Harcourt), you won’t be thinking of Duffy anymore, but of Patty Griffin, one our generation’s most remarkable and inspiring singers.

Produced by Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Modest Mouse) and Bill Reynolds of Band of Horses, the songs on Catching a Tiger are arranged like a perfect concert set list. Three powerful uptempo numbers to pull you in, then a slow ballad, followed by a moderately fast song that leads into a couple more high-energy songs before another ballad. You get the picture. Catching a Tiger flows like the classic albums we have etched in our minds, the ones we return to time and time again as the years go by. Perhaps this is the one record your children will claim as their own and recall some 10 to 15 years from now? While each and every song is produced to superlative effect, with beautifully layered harmonies over subtle guitar parts and driving rhythm sections, tying everything together is Lissie’s amazing voice and her heartfelt, truthful lyrics. While there are a slew of female singer-songwriters releasing new albums this year, most of them seem to get stuck in one mode, primarily the type of atmospheric ballads you hear playing in the background on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Lissie, like the aforementioned Griffin and the exceptional Brandi Carlile, challenges herself on each song, using her gifted vocals for greatness. She knows when the song requires her to hold back, and when it requires her to belt it out. And when she does belt it out, my God, it can be chilling. If I don’t hear another record this year, I’ll be fine because Catching a Tiger has so much power, beauty and heart that it’s going to take me a while to fall in love with something else. It is most definitely one of the best albums of this year — and possibly years to come. (2010, Fat Possum)

Visit the Lissie MySpace page

Purchase the album through Amazon (seriously, this is a must buy)

Alternative, Americana, CD Reviews, Folk, Rock, Soul

Mark Olson: Many Colored Kite

August 11, 2010 /


RIYL: The Jayhawks, Gram Parsons, Neil Young

Fans of the Jayhawks, Gram Parsons and Neil Young should be thrilled with Mark Olson’s new solo recording, Many Colored Kite. In fact, it’s Young’s early solo recordings that this album reminded me the most of. Olson’s deep, country twang, backed with compelling lyrics and solid music bring to mind such albums as After the Gold Rush and Harvest, albums grounded in country and folk, but with rock overtones.

Many Colored Kite is a pastoral affair. Olson has returned to the countryside, using nature as a theme and metaphor for the 11 songs on the album. Whether it’s a song about making it through a difficult time and finding rebirth in the world (“Little Bird of Freedom”), or it’s hopelessly romantic (“Beehive,” “Blue Bell”) or just a celebration of life and nature (“Morning Dove,” “Wind and Rain”), all of the songs are coming from a place of peacefulness in the singer/songwriter.

Music listeners unfamiliar with Olson’s solo output or his work as one of the co-founders of the Jayhawks may be off put by his singing voice upon initial listen. However, after repeated plays the melodies grow on you and create a soothing listening experience. Olson was definitely knee-deep in a ’60s experience when he recorded this collection of songs; you can definitely feel the peace, love and happiness he was experiencing come through in the music. (2010 Rykodisc)

Mark Olson MySpace page
Purchase Many Colored Kite through Amazon

Americana, CD Reviews, Country, Folk

Jesca Hoop: Hunting My Dress

August 4, 2010 /


RIYL: Tom Waits, Petra Haden, Laura Marling


The slightly off-kilter wordless harmonies that open Jesca Hoop’s “Whispering Light” immediately inform you that you’re in for a strange and possibly wonderful listening experience. With her folk music pedigree and Tom Waits connection, Hoop creates a sound firmly grounded in traditional instrumentation, with flashes and trickles of oddball noise made strangely beautiful.

Hunting My Dress is one of those records that opens up with repeated listening, for those with the patience and persistence to remain engaged. The charms of “Feast of the Heart” might escape you at first – its distorted vocal and wild-ass percussion are not typical fodder for easy listening. Get past the initial shock of the noise, though, and the layers of longing reveal themselves. The little-girl voice Hoop uses in “Angel Mom” may initially seem put-offish, but listen to it again. Hear how that voice wraps itself around the story of the child whose mother “visited me from beyond,” and determine for yourself whether Hoop could sing in any other register and be as effective.

Or consider the title track, which closes the album, and does so with a nod toward traditional folk singing and tight, multi-part harmony. Hoop’s vision – indeed, her art – can be encapsulated in this very song – her beginnings reflected in the album’s end.

Listeners open to the possibilities of the un-obvious melody, an unexpected noisy flourish, or the simple charms of a plaintive voice telling a story, will likely appreciate the artistry at work in Hunting My Dress. It might take a bit of work to get to that point, but the effort is worth it. (Vanguard 2010)

Jesca Hoop’s Myspace Page
Click to buy Hunting My Dress from Amazon

Alternative, Americana, CD Reviews, Folk

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